A Short History of Nearly Everything....

[fajrdrako]

This is one of those wonderful books. I read it twice, just because I was enjoying it so much and didn't want to go on to any other lesser book. Not right away.

The first thing I read by Bill Bryson was Mother Tongue, a history of the English language. Fasciating, funny, readable. I went on a bit of a binge of Bill Bryson reading after that; it remains my favourite of his books, but his latest, A Short History of Nearly Everything is almost as good. Like Mother Tongue, it's a sort of historical miscellany.

It's about science: what we know and how we know it. He covers geophysics, botany, genetics, quantum theory and anthropology. ("No physical anthropologist has ever said, 'I found a cave full of bones but they aren't very significant.'") He talks about Newton, Einstein, Hook, Watson and Crick, and has wonderful gossipy stories about the Victorians who founded museums and ran them.

You can find more about Bryson and his work here.

Marcelle tells me that Bryson and his family have moved back to England from the States. His website doesn't mention it. Anyone know anything about this?